I am suffering through the Visual Studio BS again, this time with C#, and I have been thinking. Wouldn't it be nice if there were a "Java Game Edition", like all the APIs needed for game development in one place and ready to go in Eclipse or Netbeans? Much like XNA.

XNA is kind of cool because it makes development easy and I don't have to worry about configuring anything. If Java had something equivalent for Android/PC, then I think it would be good for all of us. Maybe we could even stop suffering with Visual Studio's shortcomings.

I know all the code for it is already done in LWJGL or jMonkeyEngine or some other API. Wouldn't it be just a matter of a concerted effort?

If Oracle were nice enough to let people use the name "Java" in "Java Game Edition" without suing them, it would be cool too.

Naw, not when compared with most Java IDEs. Refactoring support is minimal, and forget about incremental compilation in the background. VS was the killer app when there were no credible alternatives, but it takes all kinds of third-party commercial plugins to bring it up to speed now.

Java Games Initiative Software Advanced Technologies Group at Sun Microsystems took care of several APIs still used nowadays. Its guys aimed to create something similar to XNA. Actually, in my humble opinion, XNA was not a good framework, JOGL, JOAL, JOCL, Java binding for the OpenMAX API and JInput are already used in higher level frameworks, I don't see the need of something like XNA, SDL or SFML in Java.

LibGDX is fine anyway. C# is not as cross-platform as Java and OpenTk is slower than JOGL.

Java Games Initiative Software Advanced Technologies Group at Sun Microsystems took care of several APIs still used nowadays. Its guys aimed to create something similar to XNA. Actually, in my humble opinion, XNA was not a good framework, JOGL, JOAL, JOCL, Java binding for the OpenMAX API and JInput are already used in higher level frameworks, I don't see the need of something like XNA, SDL or SFML in Java.

LibGDX is fine anyway. C# is not as cross-platform as Java and OpenTk is slower than JOGL.

I think this is a "open source" problem. I don't want to pick and choose libraries here and there. If I am interested in making games, and I want to focus in making them and not worry about libraries, engines, classpath, etc. And that's what XNA does. It is one thing to learn, in one place and tightly integrated with Visual Studio. The thing "just works"!

I understand that things like LWJGL kind of do that. But maybe it could be made "Next-Next-Finish" to get Eclipse up and a basic game running?

Java Games Initiative Software Advanced Technologies Group at Sun Microsystems took care of several APIs still used nowadays. Its guys aimed to create something similar to XNA. Actually, in my humble opinion, XNA was not a good framework, JOGL, JOAL, JOCL, Java binding for the OpenMAX API and JInput are already used in higher level frameworks, I don't see the need of something like XNA, SDL or SFML in Java.

LibGDX is fine anyway. C# is not as cross-platform as Java and OpenTk is slower than JOGL.

I think this is a "open source" problem. I don't want to pick and choose libraries here and there. If I am interested in making games, and I want to focus in making them and not worry about libraries, engines, classpath, etc. And that's what XNA does. It is one thing to learn, in one place and tightly integrated with Visual Studio. The thing "just works"!

I understand that things like LWJGL kind of do that. But maybe it could be made "Next-Next-Finish" to get Eclipse up and a basic game running?

But jME is tighly integrated with it's IDE too. That too works, without too much more hassle than an installation.

Nothing in development ever "just works". In simple basic terms XNA is a game library for VS and C# just as LibGDX is one for Eclipse and Java. Except XNA is fiddled with proprietary nonsense and licensing fees whilst libGDX is free and open source and in general a helluva lot better.

Java is a vast programming language. XNA isn't a programming language. If you want to develop games specifically without knowing how to program you're in for disappointment. Although there are plenty of other software that do not require as much programming know how as XNA or LibGDX such as Game Maker or Multimedia Fusion.

If you do feel like XNA just works for you then why consider changing?

If you do feel like XNA just works for you then why consider changing?

It seems like your minds are broken.

How difficult is to understand how good technology looks like? Apple does it. Microsoft sometimes does it, sometimes doesn't. Java used to do it.

Garbage Collection is all about letting the programmer focus on the problem instead of reimplementing the same damned memory management over and over. Thus the development is faster, with less bugs and simpler. And guess what, you don't need to install it separately or configure anything, it just works out of the box.

Apparently at some point in time Java people "got it". Now they act like Linux freaks who think confusing installation instructions of several JARs and configurations is a replacement for actual tools.

It comes with simple Drag&Drop buttons, lots of tutorials, an extensive help documentation and even a highly effective built-in programming language called GML (Game Maker Language) which is both simple and awesome. Everything Game related in 1 spot. Graphics, Music, sound effects. paths, timers, room editors, code-completion, code-lookup, debugging etc. Even since version 8 some 3d features.

I used Game Maker version 4 some 12 years ago and it's what got me into game making. It's a lot more extensive now, try it out. The full version costs only about 15$ or some such. Nvm it's like 40$ and then there's some kind of studio version for 100$. There should be a free Lite version to try out though... I think.

In other words, no there is no such thing to java. There's no wizard to setup a game-like code skeleton and manage all the required libraries.

Although you should get libgdx basic sample running in half an hour or so. Then never again worry about it, just save this skeleton then copy-paste it. Libgdx covers images, sound, music and input. (But you still have to setup Android and HTML5 plugins in eclipse to compile to these platforms.)

actually yes, that would be great! I am not familiar with the Microsoft game development world so perhaps a good and concise diagram would help those on this java forum who are not exposed to the XNA paradigm to understand what you are proposing

XNA is like a licensed version of Slick2d. The idea behind XNA is that games written with it can be run on Windows PC's, XBOX and Windows phones. You pay 99$/year for it and you get to place on the windows market place. That is if it passes the tests. Making games for Windows Phone is a bit trickier since you definitely need to know about Silverlight, XAML and Metro ( Metro is like a broad theme that you have to adhere to ).

All in all XNA is a great useful library and iirc the only library you can use to make games for Windows Phone and to access the marketplace. And now that they recently got sockets it's even better.

The illusion of "it just works", with anything really, comes with a lot of restrictions. Is that good or bad, who knows.

oh ok, so you are saying that you would like a mandated/enforced set of libraries similar to the current standard java libraries so that you only need to program against those libraries? I am not sure how that will be any *better* than separate project specific libraries? The only benefit would be as what as been mentioned, the ability to write a program against these "standard game libraries" and the game should then work on any platform that implements the standard libraries.

Who would get to say what goes in these standard game libraries? Perhaps you should create / implement a prototype solution?

But maybe it could be made "Next-Next-Finish" to get Eclipse up and a basic game running?

So...Why don't you do that?If you want to decrease the amount of time it takes to set up a project and get into the GAMES stuff, why not take the time to build your own tools?There are plenty of libraries out there you could build on top of once, and reuse over and over again...

You can't just expect to be spoon fed every tool in creation for nothing at all.

I want to program... GAMES. I don't want to worry about what API to use, or setting a classpath variable, or downloading the right JARs, etc.

This is how good technology is: it just works!

Absolutely.Well, Libgdx would really be the right thing here. Lately they actually included this eclipse project maker. So that all combined with Eclipse, creating a basic game template with Pong or anything.Technically anyone could do that, but the huge increase of Libgdx users already show how appealing it is...

We talked about not actually liking to program before and I know most of you people like coding and whatnot, but Cas may understand: We like making games... even the fact that we have to program at all is annoying... but there is no other way.

This just proves to me how tolerant the people of JGO actually are :/ I shall learn from and follow that good example.

I can meet the OP halfway as any effort to setup anything "click click go" is usually only half-finished (I can remember some LWJGL wizard for Netbeans for example). It would be nice if at least once something like that was taken all the way and kept being supported, but that requires the people who nag about it needing to exist to take up the reigns and actually do it. In other words: it ain't gonna happen.

I think his point was that xna is a tool set that is easily available, is preconfigured, and means you can just get on with the job of writing the game.

There isn't anything like that for Java, you have to pick the libraries you wish to use, download and install them separately, manage distribution etc. You can't just open an IDE, write Java, and have an application fall out that can easily be shared. It's an ease of use of the toolset rather than something to make writing games easier I think.

It sounds like he would like a version of eclipse that has a project template with jogl/jinput/ardor/jMonkeyEngine already there and waiting to go.

I *think* jMonkey might be the closest in that respect (it's been a while since I even looked).

I think his point was that xna is a tool set that is easily available, is preconfigured, and means you can just get on with the job of writing the game.

There isn't anything like that for Java, you have to pick the libraries you wish to use, download and install them separately, manage distribution etc. You can't just open an IDE, write Java, and have an application fall out that can easily be shared. It's an ease of use of the toolset rather than something to make writing games easier I think.

It sounds like he would like a version of eclipse that has a project template with jogl/jinput/ardor/jMonkeyEngine already there and waiting to go.

I *think* jMonkey might be the closest in that respect (it's been a while since I even looked).

Endolf

As I stated earlier they do have their own configuration with Netbeans. It has a few new features to make it more à la Unity. They even say that it's easy to make games with it, even if you're not entirely able to program. It surely looks like a nice toolset, and should work out-of-the-box.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRC9FDin5dA

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